


The Depths of Trust

by TiggyMalvern



Series: De Profundis [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Complete, M/M, now with added smut, some of this would be fluff if they were anybody else, the cannibalism references aren't vague any more
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-08-20 11:25:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8247070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiggyMalvern/pseuds/TiggyMalvern
Summary: Will arrives at Hannibal’s door, but trust may be a little harder to find. COMPLETE, even though the chapter counter refuses to believe me.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In a fit of total self-indulgence, I added an unplanned and very belated third chapter to this fic and doubled the length of the entire thing. My brain was having way too much fun playing with these two guys trying to figure their way around each other. Because after years of mutual obsession and emotional and physical damage, deciding to stop all of that and fuck like bunnies doesn’t mean they can have an actual relationship… 
> 
> And now I can get back to writing part five of this series, which was what I started doing before my brain took off at a tangent.
> 
> If it matters, Hannibal is living in one of the small towns/suburbs on the hillsides west of Córdoba, Argentina.

_You were my enemy: such an enemy as no man ever had... In less than three years you had entirely ruined me in every point of view. For my own sake there was nothing for me to do but to love you._  
\-- Oscar Wilde, _De Profundis_

  


The address borders a small town on the slopes west of the city, situated to catch the mountain breezes during summer. Not far from civilisation in a way that’s obviously anti-social, but enough to have a few acres, and some expectation of privacy.

Will takes the bus from the city centre, and walks the rest of the way. He wouldn’t ask a taxi to drop him at Hannibal’s doorstep. Technically there’s more risk of recognition on the bus, with twenty people around him, but nobody’s looking on a bus. He’s grown wary of spending too much time confined with one person since Jack circulated stills taken from the cameras at the house, showing the world Will’s latest and pretty much impossible to hide facial feature. 

Will studies what he sees as he walks the length of the driveway, comparing it to what he knows. The house is a modern take on the Mediterranean style, arched white stucco with shuttered windows and a multi-level terracotta roof. There’s a Mercedes under the carport instead of a Bentley – a step down in terms of branding, less distinctively exclusive.

The door is all wood, no glass. Will rings the doorbell, and listens. The insulation is good, and the wood is solid, not laminate; he can only faintly hear the footsteps on uncarpeted floor, but the rhythm is confident, and right.

Hannibal opens the door, stands back and aside to leave the entrance way unobstructed. “Hello, Will.”

Will steps inside, and toes the door firmly shut behind him, listening for the final click before he answers, and when he does, he’s already smiling. “Hello, Doctor Lecter.” Echoes converging from the past, and it’s a far more enjoyable exchange when neither one of them is looking out of a cell.

Will’s expecting Hannibal to give a disapproving twitch at his treatment of the door, but his face stretches instead into his wide smile that’s all lips, because Hannibal only shows teeth when he’s planning to bite. “I hope your journey was uninteresting?”

“As boring as I could have wanted. I even managed to sleep on the bus yesterday.” Nothing like enough, because he’s barely stopped moving in the last four days, but it helped.

Hannibal looks better, so much better than he did in his cell, and that’s despite getting shot in between. His skin’s darkened again with the sun, the marks that hung beneath his eyes are less stark, and the confidence – he never lost that in the BSHCI, he always carried himself as if the place ran to his specifications, and to some extent, it did – but it’s lying naturally on his body now, not a projection over the boredom and indignity.

He’s dressed casually, by Hannibal’s standards, a simple shirt and elegantly cut jacket over slacks, no patterned silk ties or pocket squares demanding attention from everyone who passes within his orbit. He’s playing a longer, more circumspect game than he did in Florence, and Will is always pleased when he’s predicted Hannibal again. 

Will’s not the only one staring. Hannibal’s got his eyes fixed on Will with that intensity that says he will never, ever stop looking, but what his mouth says is, “Can I offer you something to drink? I could make some coffee.”

Will face contorts. “No thanks, I might have drowned myself already in the last five cups.”

“Perhaps you would like something to eat then,” Hannibal suggests. “Long distance travel is terrible for the digestion. I can prepare something light.”

Everything Will has left to want is standing here in the hallway of this house, and he’s talking to him about afternoon tea.

“I’ll take you up on that later,” Will says, with a quirked smile. “Your cooking’s good, but I didn’t come here to be fed.” There might be a conversation about food somewhere in their future, but that’s about number twelve on Will’s priority list of things to figure out, and he’s not starting on any of them now.

Hannibal doesn’t react to Will’s suggestiveness. “I’ll show you to your room. You can leave your things there.”

“My things don’t take up a whole lot of space,” Will swings the small backpack from his shoulder. “I forgot to hire a moving truck for the rest.” He’s arriving at Hannibal’s door effectively destitute, but Hannibal isn’t expecting anything else. Will had all of four days to prepare for life as a hunted criminal, not two decades.

“I have a card that’s secure for online use. We can order you some more things for the short term.” Hannibal turns and heads deeper into the house, up a set of stairs. Will’s aware of an open plan living area to his right as he ascends, but that’s not what he’s looking at. Hannibal’s movements as he takes each step are balanced, smooth and quick. There’s confidence and ease through his body as he climbs, at a pace that matches Will’s memories, and whatever Dolarhyde’s bullet did to him, it’s healed with no visibly lingering effects. 

Hannibal enters the first doorway at the top, moving aside to let Will pass. Will takes a few steps more, until he’s standing at the foot of a bed, and he turns back to watch him. 

Hannibal’s hair is longer again, already. So is Will’s, but in Hannibal’s case it will be an active choice to grow out his prison cut, not because getting a trim didn’t make his priority list. Will did hole up in a hotel room yesterday for long enough to make good use of a pair of scissors and a razor on his face. The beard was helpful for getting him out of the US, but he had no intention of showing up on Hannibal’s doorstep wearing his full woodland hermit styling.

Hannibal’s hair is loose, falling towards his eyes, the look Will associates with early morning coffees and violence, no slicked-back, sleek professional today.

Will’s impulse to reach out and touch it is startlingly intense.

“I trust you find it acceptable?” Hannibal asks politely.

Will’s not going to answer that. He can only keep staring at Hannibal, because Hannibal came to Will’s home in Wolf Trap dozens of times, and Will hasn’t taken his eyes from the man to even look at this room, but he’s unlikely to make a fuss because it isn’t scratched up by claws and cluttered with engine parts.

The last Will saw of Hannibal, they were both drenched in blood, their own, each other’s, Dolarhyde’s, the two of them clinging together like barnacles on a battered hull. Now they’re in the same place for the first time in months, and Hannibal’s draped in layers of perfect European manners, and that’s… entirely understandable, and entirely Will’s fault.

Hannibal’s never been able to predict what he can expect from Will, largely because Will himself rarely had any fucking clue either. Will smiling at Hannibal and wrapping himself all over him right before he dragged them both down a rock face was really just the latest shining example in a recurring pattern of erratic behaviour. 

Hannibal will take his cues from Will; he’s never offered anything more than words. It’s up to Will to change what he doesn’t like, and he didn’t sneak himself out of the US and ride buses half the length of South America to indulge in some polite small talk.

Hannibal has to know what this is. It’s not Will bolting from a trap, it’s not a place to regroup before he moves on, and it’s definitely not a lie, another meticulously tied lure for the deception. It’s Will’s choice; it’s what he wants.

What Hannibal wants hasn’t been in doubt for a very long time. 

Will drops his pack onto the bed, walks the few steps forwards, hooks a hand onto Hannibal’s shoulder to pull him in, to hold him, and he kisses him.

There’s an instant of taut stillness beneath Will’s hand, beneath his lips, because Will’s managed to surprise Hannibal yet again. It’s only an instant, because Hannibal has never been slow at anything, he always reacts, fast and certain, and his lips slide with Will’s, and his hands are on Will, and this is the line that Will could never cross.

All the lies, the deceptions, the traps and the manipulations, they were never _this_. It was there, hanging between them, filling the air with every private conversation, every time Hannibal reached across to touch Will, but neither of them had ever used it, had ever taken it and twisted it against the other. This press of lips and wetly gliding tongues is a promise, a proof that this time is different, and he has to make Hannibal _believe_ it.

Will slides his hand up higher, over Hannibal’s neck and into his hair, the hair that’s too short now for him to thread between his fingers the way he does in his head, because Will thought about this briefly, vaguely, before he knew, and he thought about this when he knew and he hated, and he thought about this on his bed before he spoke the words that drove Hannibal into a cell; he’s _thought_ about this, and none of those times was Hannibal easing back, pulling gently away, and it’s wrong. Will follows him with his lips, with himself, pushing his body into Hannibal’s along the whole length of them, like he can force the truth into Hannibal with sheer enthusiasm, because Will came here for Hannibal, and for this, and Hannibal has to know that Will means it.

Hannibal’s hand strokes upwards from Will’s hip to his chest, edging between them, and there’s nothing hard or violent, just a consistent pressure easing them apart. “Will…”

“I know, I know, I’ve been travelling all day and I need a shower,” Will interrupts lightly. Whatever excuse Hannibal has for backing off, Will doesn’t want to hear it. If he listens to it, they’ll end up debating it, and that could drag on for hours.

Besides all that, it’s actually true. Will’s not wearing any cheap aftershave lately, but he’s not sure which Hannibal’s nose would object to more. 

“Of course.” Hannibal’s face remains settled in that neutral, placid mask, but that’s not what’s in his eyes. “The bathroom is the next door along the hall. It contains everything you might need.” He stands and stares a moment longer before he turns to leave, and Will is listening to his steps on the stairs, a hollow echo from the tiles.

With Hannibal gone, Will’s eyes are finally free to roam over the room, neat and simple in mid-toned wood and Mediterranean tile, coordinated two-colour linens on the over-sized bed. There are matching towels laid out, because Hannibal’s spare rooms are always made up in case of visitors. Will’s plans don’t include a separate bedroom, but he’s unsurprised to find himself standing in one; Hannibal would never be so rude as to make assumptions about a house guest. 

Will strips out of his clothes – he reflects with a smile that Hannibal would probably have objections to being pressed up against someone wearing worn, sagging jeans whatever the circumstances – and takes one of the towels as he goes to find the bathroom.

It’s functionally uncomplicated, attractive and practical without the dramatised elegance of the Baltimore house. It fits with the car and Hannibal’s simplified fashion, lacking the exhibitionist flair of the high society entertainer, and it’s a lot closer to Will’s tastes. There’s soap and shampoo and conditioner, all sharing a European brand name Will doesn’t know and an unusual, woody scent, and that’s the original Hannibal leaking through the modified façade.

The shower head is large, rainfall style, and Will alters the flow for more pressure, enjoying the heat of it over his muscles, aching from spending most of the last twenty-four hours hunched on bus seats. He soaps himself up efficiently – he still has the half stirrings of an erection triggered by kissing Hannibal, but he’s not doing anything about that right now, and he keeps his washing brisk and functional.

The shower was a good idea – it’s making him feel a lot more awake, more alive. Not alive the way that kissing Hannibal makes him feel alive, because that’s… apparently that’s how it is when he wants something for so long, before he finally lets himself grab it. It’s… intense. Fiery. Consuming. 

It wasn’t the same sensation as on the cliff, not really. The cliff was just how it happened; no thought, no planning, it was the two of them together, how it should be, both of them knowing it and reaching for it. They weren’t kissing on the cliff, because while getting shot and stabbed and surviving together somehow only intensified the love, intensified it beyond a baseline that’s already shifted tellingly towards the compulsive end of the spectrum, it wasn’t doing so much for the physical aspects of attraction.

Kissing Hannibal just now was different – it was good, it was acutely arousing, but it was that bit too tense, too much background of ‘What can I do to fix this?’ to be entirely natural.

Will can work on that. It’s going to be thoroughly enjoyable while he does.

He dries himself off quickly, towelling his hair only enough to stop the dripping. Hannibal’s had enough time to get over the surprise, to absorb the idea that Will kissed him, and giving him too much longer to think about it is probably a very bad idea.

He mentally debates clothes, and decides he’ll get closer without comment if he’s wearing them. He’s not bothering with underwear, though. He goes back to the bedroom to pull on a clean pair of slacks and a plain shirt that he bought with a purloined credit card before he left the US. They’re basic, and creased from the journey, but they’re not denim and plaid.

He pulls the bedsheets back, leaving it ready for use, because whichever bed he ends up in later, they’ll both be in the same one.

He pads barefoot down the stairs to explore the living areas, and he finds Hannibal sitting in a leather armchair with a book, beside a low, banked fire that the fall afternoon doesn’t justify; a familiar comfort used to over-write the forced deprivations of incarceration. Will thinks the book is a prop, and Hannibal puts it aside without a glance as he walks in. “Were you able to find everything you need?”

Will settles himself on the arm of Hannibal’s chair. “The only thing I _need_ here,” he says, dragging out the emphasis on the word, “is you.”

It’s cheesy, and he knows it, but it has the right effect. The layer of blank politeness vanishes, instant intensity of focus in Hannibal’s gaze, and Will reaches a hand to Hannibal’s face, turning him as he leans in to kiss him.

There’s no pause this time, and considerably less tension, Hannibal kissing back simple, slow, soft. The angle is atrocious, and Will slides himself down with his knees resting on the corners of the seat, straddling Hannibal. Better. He can relax his body into Hannibal as he kisses him, and Hannibal won’t be backing away this time without some very undignified wriggling.

Not that Hannibal seems to be going anywhere, because Will has his lips, his tongue licking into his mouth against his own, and Hannibal’s hands are moving over his ribs, finding a line somewhere between stroking him and holding him in place, and Will’s fine with either. Will’s fingers press into Hannibal’s shirt, exploring the soft flesh over the muscle beneath, and he wonders vaguely what he would he would have found if he’d done this back when he first wanted it, before three years in a cell and a bullet took their toll on Hannibal’s body. 

Hannibal will work to get his fitness back, because that’s who he is – it’s hard to miss the narcissism in a man who dresses like Hannibal – but Will wants to touch him either way, because this is _Hannibal_ , and he’s wanted him for years, and the cell and the bullet, Hannibal did all of that for _Will_. And now he’s here between Will’s thighs, and Will can kiss and rub and hold, and it seems impossible right now that he’ll ever get bored of touching, or of feeling Hannibal’s hands slide lower on his body and move over his ass.

“I really don’t recommend running around without underwear, Will.” Hannibal breathes the words over Will’s skin as he kisses and licks his way along his jawline. “It can cause some very unpleasant chafing.”

“I’ve no plans to go running anywhere, or walking more than the fifteen stairs to a bed,” Will tells him, and he tilts his pelvis, rolling his hips into Hannibal’s fingers for emphasis.

“Love must not be, but take a body too?” Hannibal says, and Will feels his smile curve against his neck. Hannibal’s voice is rougher, his smooth accent slipping into gravelled, and Will’s heard that before, remembers it mesmerising on top of a cliff. _’This is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us.’_

Will sits back, looking down to raise his eyebrows at Hannibal. “Did you want us to have dinner first, while you quote Donne at me?” His hands are brushing over Hannibal’s shoulders, beneath his jacket, pushing the cloth back and down to reveal more of the shape of the man. “We’ve eaten a lot of dinners, Hannibal.” Dinners more intimate than most people could ever know, dinners of shared knowledge and awful secrets and shattered taboos, and Will kisses his way back into Hannibal’s mouth before he can answer, because Hannibal might actually have some thoughts about a perfectly prepared dinner being more important than sex, and Will thinks their priority should definitely stay with the sex for now.

Kissing Hannibal is just as pleasing as it was before the shower, and they’re figuring out what they like as they go, settling into a pace that suits them both. Will lets more of his weight relax into Hannibal’s lap, enjoying the press of Hannibal’s thighs against him. His hands travel Hannibal’s body, roaming shoulders and chest and arms, clutching, a swirling need in his head to touch and learn this man, while Hannibal mirrors and reciprocates on Will. They’re still kissing as they stroke; Hannibal kisses with just enough tongue and the faintest edge of teeth. Hannibal’s hands have shifted onto Will’s thighs, thick fingers kneading into the muscle there, and it feels great after the shower and the ache from the bus; Will is hard, fully hard, and his body is totally happy with this, and it’s not right.

It’s what Will wants, and planned for, and it’s all frustratingly... contained. 

Hannibal’s enjoying this, and Will can’t say he’s unenthusiastic in his attention to Will’s skin, but he’s not Hannibal. 

Hannibal _needs_ Will, and Will knows that, and what he _wants_ is to feel it from him. Will’s been slowly ripping apart the structure of his entire life for four years because of this man, and he wants all of it now he’s here, not whatever part Hannibal’s decided he’s willing to share today.

Will stills his movement, waits until Hannibal’s eyes raise to meet his, then reaches deliberately for Hannibal’s erection, palming him through the cloth, and keeps his hand there. “You’ve been telling me to let go for years, Hannibal. You should take your own advice.”

Hannibal lifts a hand to Will’s face, resting it light on his cheek. “This isn’t what matters, Will.”

Hannibal is all Will has left now, and that’s okay, because he doesn’t need anything more than Hannibal, but only if he’s real, if he’s not shutting Will outside the façade he’s built for the rest of the world. Will’s fingers dig bruises into Hannibal’s arm and he sits back far enough to focus, to glare his intent, and to be seen. “It matters to _me_.”

There’s a moment without movement, a stillness between them, Will staring into muddied brown eyes that burn with reflected embers, and he sees the decision drop over them. 

“You don’t get to regret this, Will.”

Will has an instant to consider what a really fucking stupid statement that is, and then he’s not considering anything much at all, because his own desire’s coming back at him full force as Hannibal pulls him in; no layers or masks left, just kissing and hands, urgent and pressing, and Will can _read_ Hannibal, feel him fully and entirely open inside his head for only the third time in all the years since he met him. This is what they had on the cliff, this is what Will needs from him, and on the cliff it was _everything_ , and now it’s just the lead into more, and more, because what Will’s absorbing from Hannibal is obsessive and demanding, and selfish, and Will doesn’t mind at all, because he can’t be the only one who feels it like this, and if one of them is drowning, they both have to be.

And Will is drowning now, drowning in the physical press of his body against another after months of intense isolation, drowning in the rush of hormones and lust through his thoughts, drowning in the crushing depths of love that’s his own, and Hannibal’s, and his own again, flashing back and forth between them in his head. Will’s moving for more of it automatically, no conscious thinking involved, his hand tugging at Hannibal’s belt because that’s needed, but he has enough of his brain left independent of his hard-on to remember his earlier comment about the bed. He’s not going to try and have sex in an armchair, and definitely not on a bare tiled floor, not when he’s the wrong side of forty.

He lifts his hips and starts wriggling away from the chair, but Hannibal’s arms tighten over his ribs, fingers pressing on his shoulder blades, and Will lets himself be pulled back in. “You gave me a bed,” he says, and runs his tongue along Hannibal’s ear lobe. “So let’s use it.”

Hannibal’s grip intensifies for a moment, and then eases. “I’ve always held great admiration for your intelligence,” he says into Will’s neck, and his lips tickle amusement against his throat.

Will slides backwards onto his feet, stepping away to give Hannibal space. Hannibal stands, letting his jacket slip the rest of the way from his arms to the seat of the chair, and he doesn’t stop to straighten or fold it.

There’s an odd few seconds, standing apart and watching one another, knowing exactly where this is going after years of restraint, and Will’s breathing a little hard, and seeing Hannibal do the same.

Will breaks it with a smile, before he turns away. “Come to bed with me, Doctor Lecter,” he says over his shoulder, and he doesn’t stop to see the effect.

They make it as far as the bottom steps before Hannibal’s pressing him up against the wall and tugging Will’s shirt loose at his waist, and Will has to slide himself free and drag him up the rest of the stairs and into the guest bedroom, because he knows where that one is. And there’s kissing, and shirt buttons under his fingers, and kissing, and zippers, and kissing, until there’s not because Hannibal has to deal with socks, and then they’re both entirely naked and pressed up against each other and easing down onto the bed.

Will hasn’t had sex in months, and for most of that time he’s been too painful, miserable or tension-strung to even indulge himself much in the shower. Hannibal – Hannibal was shot the day he escaped from a cell, and since he healed, he’s probably been more concerned with consolidating his cover identity than seducing the local population. Not to mention the scars they both wear now, increasingly difficult to explain to a stranger, inviting too many questions about an obviously peculiar life history. Will’s confident Hannibal hasn’t had sex for a lot longer even than Will.

It’s not a recipe for a lengthy encounter, but that doesn’t matter, because what Will wants is Hannibal’s lips and his hands and his skin, all of his skin, and there’ll be more than enough time to be patient later. He wants to feel Hannibal everywhere on his body, the way he feels him all through his head, lying side by side now with legs hooked together, kissing and touching and tasting every part of each other within reach, and that’s a really good start for what he wants. Will’s way past the start, though, he was past the start downstairs in the armchair, and he winds his hand between them to Hannibal’s erection, foreskin sliding soft inside the curl of his fingers, hair brushing light against his knuckles, and then Hannibal’s hand is on Will, and he just _wants_ , pushing himself hard into the grip of those fingers and struggling to keep his rhythm on Hannibal.

It’s hampered and uncoordinated, arms and hands cramped in the space that’s barely there between them, easier to just grip and let each other ride up into it but somehow that’s not what they’re doing, and it’s messy and frantic with absolutely no finesse, teeth and noses clashing and too much saliva when they stretch their necks to kiss, and it’s perfect and reckless like nothing else Will has felt in forty years.

He’s panting and pressing and stroking, and he drops his head forward to Hannibal’s shoulder and bites down, not hard, but enough for it to be felt, because he thinks Hannibal might like that, and oh, yes, yes, he does, his muscles are tightening and not fighting, his breath inhaled sharp by Will’s ear, and that’s something to be explored sometime in the future, some time when Will isn’t so driven and so close, and when he has better fine motor control. 

He scrapes his teeth through the thin sheen of sweat over Hannibal’s collarbone and looks back up into his eyes, and the depths of possessiveness there are breath-taking, the flare of it hot in Will’s chest and in his cock, and he’s not even sure if it’s Hannibal’s or his own obsession that he’s feeling anymore, because neither of them will ever let the other go. Hannibal is his now, this violent, loving, cultured, brutal chaos of a man is always his, and he pushes up into Hannibal’s hand, shoving hard against his skin as he comes.

His fingers tighten around Hannibal, and Hannibal is sliding through his grip and panting breath over Will’s cheek as Will shivers his way through the end of it, and then he rubs his thumb around the head of Hannibal’s cock and lets himself slip into Hannibal’s mind to feel it with him when Hannibal’s rhythm quickens and breaks, lets himself share a second cycle of tension released and shattered, along with the sticky wetness smeared between their bodies.

They’re tangled close, contorted around one another. Will’s mouth hovers inches from Hannibal’s; they’re breathing air back and forth between them, and he thinks he should say something, something like ‘thank you’ or ‘that was good’ but less trite, so he closes the gap and brushes his lips light over Hannibal’s because suddenly he’s not good with words again.

Hannibal allows it, but he doesn’t deepen it, doesn’t meld with it, and there’s a pause before he slides away, away out of the bed, and Will’s listening to his footsteps pad along the tiled hallway and into the bathroom. 

He hears water run with obvious splashing, and then there’s quiet for a couple of minutes. Everything’s quiet here in this isolated house, on a quiet road skirting a quiet town, and there’s only Will’s own breathing and the soft rustle of sheets as he rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling, brilliant white in the afternoon sun. 

Will still has that tendril of Hannibal woven through his head, leaking thoughts and reasons, and sex has never been an effective band aid for a damaged relationship, even when it’s good sex. He hears movement again, and a cupboard door close before the feet return, and he’s not surprised that when Hannibal comes back, he’s brought the distance back with him.

Hannibal’s skin is clean now, and he stands by the bed, handing Will a damp washcloth. Will wipes himself off, then tosses the cloth into the wastebasket where it can be dealt with later, along with a giant pile of less physical things. 

Hannibal is still naked, and he waits, looking Will over, before he lies back on the bed alongside him, drawing the sheet up to his waist, and that’s better than where Will thought this might be going thirty seconds ago.

Will saw that moment of change in his eyes downstairs, and he knows it was a decision. Hannibal didn’t lose control – he chose to set it aside temporarily, and now he’s reclaimed it, the flawless mirrored surface back in place over the man, even when the man is stripped bare and sharing his bed.

 _’Abandonment requires expectation.’_ Hannibal hadn’t understood it then, the bitter emotional truth behind the words, not when Will said them. He knows it now; Will taught him well.

Will tips his head sideways on the pillow, meeting Hannibal’s eyes and watching him watch him. 

“I’m sorry, Will.”

Will isn’t remotely sorry about anything, and Hannibal isn’t apologising for now. “I have no idea why.”

“I had intended to let things progress differently, to give you time.”

It’s only half of the truth, because Hannibal wants to give himself more time. He trusted Will not to show up here with a SWAT team in tow, but he hasn’t decided yet how much further he wants to trust him.

It seems ridiculously tedious to Will, with all their history, but it’s their history that’s the problem. “I’ve wanted you for years, I’d say we’ve given it more than enough time, Hannibal.” 

“You wanted all of this, yes, but you didn’t choose it. There were reasons for that, Will.”

He really should have known better than to think Hannibal might leave the psychiatrist outside the bedroom. “There were, I remember them, and I’ve decided they were all meaningless.”

Will’s flippancy does nothing to break through the layered detachment in Hannibal’s eyes. “All of them?”

Not all of them, not quite. Will won’t lose anyone else, even if with this choice, he effectively already has.

It would have been nice if Hannibal had just let him relax and sleep before he started on the serious conversations, but Hannibal always loves to talk, and he never will leave a sore spot alone.

Will rolls onto his side, props himself up on his elbow, so he’s looking down at Hannibal – Hannibal, lying in his bed. 

This isn’t Will’s bed, he has no attachment to it, but he _owns_ Hannibal. He’s owned him for years, if he’d wanted to claim him, and he’s not naïve enough to think that tether only runs one way. Any bed Hannibal is sleeping in is Will’s bed now.

“I want you to break your promise to Alana,” he says.

And there it is, the taut rigidity all through Hannibal’s body, instant, defensive. “And what will you do if I refuse?”

Will reaches out his free hand to Hannibal’s face, strokes his thumb slow and gentle over the scar that accentuates one angled cheekbone. “This isn’t blackmail, Hannibal. I’m asking for a favour.”

God knows what he’d do if Hannibal said no; probably some Chiyoh-style interference, and deal with whatever bloody consequences came after. 

Hannibal’s staring up at Will with slightly narrowed eyes, studying, looking for the lie. “You will stay. Even if I say I have to keep a promise.”

It’s not going to happen – he knows Hannibal will do this for him, and Will can write off the last of his debts, his mistakes, and live entirely for himself.

“Yes.” Will leans in, presses a simple kiss to Hannibal’s chest, over his heart, where the dusting of hair scratches lightly at Will’s nose. 

‘I’m staying whatever happens,’ is what he wants to say, but he doesn’t, because Will acknowledges now after the years of denial that he is in love, but he understands precisely the man he is in love with. He won’t say something so dangerously leading, and invite Hannibal to test the limits of it.

When Will pushes back up onto his elbow again, some of the tension has gone from the body beside him, and Hannibal’s gaze on him is his usual sultry, heavy-lidded focus.

“Then Alana is safe.”

Will takes that statement, and turns it over in his head, looking for the loophole. There was no qualifying ‘from me’, indicating that Hannibal might send someone else Alana’s way. On the other hand, there was no mention of Margot’s safety, or their son’s.

“I’ll make it a promise, if you like,” Hannibal offers into the silence.

A promise from Hannibal has always meant something, but will that still be true now that Will is making him break one?

If Will wants Hannibal to trust him, he’s going to have to do the same. “Just a ‘yes’ is fine.”

There’s a hint of a smile quirked at the corner of Hannibal’s mouth now. “In that case, yes, consider your favour granted.”

Will’s fingers slide over Hannibal’s cheek to stroke into his hair. “Thank you,” he says quietly, and he is openly sincere. Hannibal’s breaking a promise, for Will, and with it he’s removing the last possible doubt Will might have had.

Will wriggles his elbow out from under him, flopping back down onto his side to lie facing Hannibal, peering over the lump of the pillow. “Now are there any more difficult conversations you feel we need to have before I go to sleep? Because if so, you have maybe five minutes.”

“I believe the rest of them can wait for more opportune timing.” Hannibal is smiling, the small, genuine lift of his lips that even Will rarely sees. He strokes a finger light along Will’s jaw, leaves his hand to rest at his shoulder. “Sleep, Will.”

Will wants to sleep, he needs to sleep, but he still leans in to kiss Hannibal again, because this time Hannibal is kissing back, and he likes kissing Hannibal. He wants to do _everything_ with Hannibal (and at some point he’ll have to decide how far ‘everything’ goes when they’re not in the bedroom), but right now he’s too fucking tired to do anything else before he sleeps; he just wants to breathe, and kiss, and touch, soft and light, his hands stroking along Hannibal’s skin as he sinks into the waiting drowsiness. One hand slides onto skin that lies ridged and densely scarred over Hannibal’s ribs and spine in an obscenely perfect circle, and Mason Verger should be very, very glad that he’s already dead, because if he was ever sitting in Will’s living room again, Will would happily slice the skin from the remains of his face himself, and then move on to the rest of him.

Hannibal eases his lips away from Will’s, tips his face below Will’s chin and into his neck, and Will stills and lets him rest there, because the thing Hannibal does with his nose is close enough to what Will does in his head that Will can understand it, even if he’ll never get it. Hannibal’s breath is light and warm over his skin, and Hannibal’s hand is on his hip, and Will’s hands are on Hannibal, and Will drifts into sleep holding on to his improbable, impossible love.


	2. Chapter 2

He wakes in a bed that's amazingly comfortable, deep and satiny, with his arm resting on someone who is nothing like Molly.

Hannibal. He’s in bed with Hannibal.

He lies still, waiting, curious if there’s going to be any hint, any tiny wriggling worm inside suggesting this might not have been the best of ideas.

He doesn’t feel it. He feels relaxed; warm.

Will’s been managing himself since he was a teenager, managing himself and the opinions of anyone he interacts with. He’s been cautious, careful to appear only within the acceptable boundaries of odd (because he never could manage ‘normal’), avoiding and minimising situations that might loose the impulse to violence he could hide from the world, but not from himself. To decide now that the world and its opinion of Will Graham can go fuck itself, to do only and exactly what he wants, is incredibly freeing.

He pushes closer into the body alongside him, shaping his legs to Hannibal’s.

“Good evening, Will.” Will doesn’t need to open his eyes to know the smile behind the voice, but he does anyway, and yes, it’s still daylight, but not for much longer, and Hannibal stayed and lay here with him through the hours, watching Will sleep.

He feels… happy.

Hannibal is studying Will, and he’s thinking, but it’s rare that he isn’t. Will runs his fingers up over Hannibal’s ribs, his collarbone, his neck, to tease at the ends of his hair.

Will’s a little surprised by the level of fixation he seems to have for Hannibal’s hair, but he supposes he shouldn’t be. He saw so little of Hannibal physically, this man who was always buttoned up in his endless collection of suits. His forearms when he rolled up his sleeves to cook, or to save a life, or to take one, that was about the extent of Will’s visuals before today, and Hannibal’s hair is the only part of him that ever looks mussed. Even when Will knocked on his door at some miserable hour of the morning, Hannibal answered in pyjamas and a bathrobe that actually looked _elegant_ , his mind instantly sharp, his hair the only thing giving away the fact that Will had dragged him out of bed. 

That had been more surprising before Will understood quite how much time Hannibal spent being nocturnal. Sleeping just a few hours a night must have been as normal for Hannibal as it was for Will back then, only Hannibal managed not to look like hell because of it.

Apparently Will isn’t the only one with a thing for hair, because Hannibal’s fingers are splayed through Will’s curls, pressing light into his scalp behind his ear. And then he realises Hannibal’s thumb is stroking along the thin, faded scar that runs just below his hairline.

It actually makes him laugh, because it’s definitely not the most obvious facial flaw he has now. “Really, Hannibal? You want to start that conversation too? I would have thought that was a subject best avoided, at least until after the honeymoon phase is over.”

This time, Hannibal doesn’t respond to Will’s humour with his own. “You and I have done each other so much harm, Will,” he muses.

“I remember the time you put a power saw to my head, yes,” Will says, dryly. “You didn’t drug me nearly enough for it to be forgettable.”

“You said you forgave me, and then you planned to stab me. I was a little angry, at the time.” Hannibal’s thumb slides slow across his forehead again. “I would have regretted it later, I have no doubt about that.”

“I’m fairly sure I would have regretted it too,” Will can’t resist pointing out. 

If Chiyoh hadn’t interfered, there’s an excellent chance Will would have stuck that knife in Hannibal. It seemed like a fair trade. Going by past history, he almost certainly wouldn’t have killed Hannibal, though. He’s never been able to do that. 

Will doesn’t share Hannibal’s precision with a blade – he can’t actually rule out that he might have killed him somewhat accidentally.

He places a hand on Hannibal’s stomach, fingers splayed over the skin he’d wanted to break and bleed to match his own, and he lifts his head away from the pillow and smiles. “I propose a deal. I won’t try to murder you again, and you don’t try to eat me.”

Hannibal’s lips stretch in answer finally, enough to deepen the lines that edge his eyes. “That sounds entirely reasonable.”

“You can eat me when I’m dead. I won’t mind then.” Will says it with humour, but he’s well aware it will be taken seriously, and that’s fine. A dead body is just a dead body, of no relevance to its previous owner; Will’s seen enough of them to hold no illusions about that.

“Will…”

He seems to have finally found a way to leave Hannibal wallowing without words, a look strikingly amusing on a man who uses them as his weapon more often than he uses a knife. “You don’t get to kill me though,” Will warns. “Not unless I have stage four cancer and I’m asking you to.” 

They won’t be growing old, at least not together. If they’re dying of age-related disease, it will be in the hospital ward of an institution, but it’s more likely to end fast and violent, and Will thinks that might be preferable to spending decades in the BSHCI.

“I would be extremely angry with anyone who killed you, Will,” Hannibal says, “even if it was myself.”

Will knows Hannibal when he’s extremely angry; he’s felt it, both empathically and rather more literally. It’s hard to provoke and impossible to mitigate, and definitely best avoided, but Will already plans to avoid dying.

Hannibal’s fingers have drifted lower on Will’s face, over the newest of his collection of scars and down to his chin, and now he exerts a gentle pressure, encouraging Will to tilt his cheek into the long shafts of light from the window.

“Your surgeon shouldn’t be allowed to operate on cattle,” Hannibal says with blatant contempt.

“My surgeon was employed at short notice, with an emphasis on their ability to keep me alive and keep their mouth shut,” Will points out. “And you had your medical licence revoked, so your superiority may not be wholly justified.”

“My qualifications weren’t revoked because of any doubts over my clinical competence,” Hannibal says stuffily. ‘It was only my extracurricular hobbies that the boards found questionable.”

Will huffs out air, half way to laughing. “I think maybe you failed on ‘First, do no harm.’”

“That phrase never was part of the Hippocratic oath, neither the ancient nor the modern versions,” Hannibal says.

“I’m sure the committee who examined your case were fond of the principle, either way.”

“It was probably a short hearing, given my unavoidable absence,” Hannibal concedes.

“And I should probably be glad that you fell in love with my brain, and not my face,” Will says, and he’s only half way mocking.

Hannibal’s fingers tighten briefly on his jaw, a rise in pressure only barely perceptible. “I don’t dislike it, Will,” he says easily. “It lets you look like who you are, and I enjoy that very much.” His eyes on Will turn fierce as he speaks, and instantly Will sees himself how Hannibal is seeing him, a moon-washed attacker with a knife in his hand, smiling beneath the thick streaks of blood, alight with satisfaction and power. He blinks it away, and he’s only seeing Hannibal again. 

He buried a lot of things about Hannibal during the years apart. He buried how being with Hannibal makes him feel so much more ‘Will Graham’ than being with anyone else. Hannibal knows everything about Will, he _likes_ everything about Will, and there’s no hiding any of it, not here.

Hannibal has dropped back into his efficient evaluation of Will’s scar. “I do fear it may prove inconvenient at some point,” he concludes.

Will arrived at that conclusion the day Jack gave his most recent photos to the press. The search for Will Graham doesn’t get anything like the media exposure here that it does in the US, but the internet goes a long way to filling those gaps. Freddie’s numbers must be keeping her advertisers happy. “Well, I’m not inclined to take the Frederick Chilton approach, and start wearing make-up.”

“I would never suggest it,” Hannibal says. “I’m only wondering if it might be revised.”

Will sighs. He’s not really in favour of more surgery and more pain, even of the minor variety, not so soon after he’s gotten past the last round, but it’s not a terrible idea. Hannibal is still holding his chin, turning Will’s head gently at different angles into the light, entirely clinical and assessing, and the fingers of his other hand palpate the skin and muscle of Will’s cheek to find the knots in the tissue. “There will always be some scarring, I’m afraid that’s inevitable, but it could certainly be more subtle,” Hannibal decides.

“Subtle would be better,” Will admits, but he sounds about as enthusiastic as he’s feeling on the subject.

“There’s no particular hurry,” Hannibal says. “This house is private enough, and I have very few visitors. It might be best to leave the scar tissue to fully contract before considering any further action. We have time to make arrangements.”

Time suits Will just fine. He’s spent the last ten days constantly making arrangements, and now that he’s here, he’d quite like to relax and enjoy it before he has his face sliced open again. He wants to enjoy _Hannibal_ while kissing and blow jobs are enthusiastic and painless, and with that thought he leans over to start the kissing, because there’s been far too much talking between them since he woke up, but that’s always been the pattern of their relationship.

Hannibal seems to agree, and for a while it’s slow and languid, just lips and a gentle brush of tongues as Will’s hands stroke over Hannibal’s skin, because this is when he gets to explore in a more thorough way after the afternoon’s hurried humping; this is when he gets to absorb the detail and make it work for him, for both of them. He has a list to run through, an entire varied menu of ideas, and it starts with doing more with his mouth, kissing down over Hannibal’s shoulders and ribs, past hair and the recently healed scar from a bullet, until Hannibal’s growing erection is a brush of velvet skin alongside his nose.

He looks up, locking his eyes into Hannibal’s gaze, and this time it’s almost Hannibal looking back.


	3. Chapter 3

When Will wakes again, it’s morning, and dawn was a while back. The sun’s on the far side of the house, and the light in the room is already bright. 

He could check his watch to see just how long he slept, but it doesn’t matter. 

Hannibal is asleep alongside him, totally relaxed, every muscle soft, his mouth slightly open, and it’s something Will has never seen. It makes him feel ridiculously protective of this man, a man who absolutely doesn’t need it. 

He rolls up onto his elbow to watch him, to look at him, and resists the urge to reach over and touch. 

Hannibal’s eyes open at the movement; they focus on Will, and for that first second it’s as if the energy of the entire galaxy flares inside them. It only lasts a moment before the shutters come down, and Hannibal is assessing him carefully in the morning light. 

“Morning, Hannibal,” Will says, and he’s smiling mostly at himself, because he didn’t expect that everything would change in a day, but it was nice to hope. 

He wonders just how much of the night Hannibal spent awake, studying Will as he slept, trying to figure out where the hook is, exactly when Will is going to turn around and claw out his heart. 

“Good morning, Will,” Hannibal says, and his smile is one of the automatic ones that he gives to anyone. 

Will won’t do that again, he can’t, it’s real this time (though it was always _real_ ), and it might easily be another five years before Hannibal can let himself believe it. 

“You must be hungry,” Hannibal says, and it’s amazing how smoothly he can exude that polite formality even when he’s naked with a layer of morning stubble. “I will shower, and then I’ll make us breakfast.” He slides from the bed and out of the room, pausing briefly to gather up the clothes he shed yesterday, still tangled with Will’s on the floor. 

Will watches him go, then drops his head back to the pillow, stretching an arm across the bed into the empty warmth. 

What Will wants is to go and join him in the shower, to look at him again, touch him again, but Will’s done a lot of pushing since he walked in, and Hannibal’s given him more than half of what he demanded. It’s probably fair at this point to let Hannibal take back some of his space for a little while. 

The concept of fairness between them after everything is almost laughable, but this isn’t going to work if one of them doesn’t at least make an attempt, and it’s unlikely to be Hannibal. 

Hannibal wants Will here. Will wants to be here. If that was all it needed, they would have done this years ago. 

Will sits up on the bed, and listens into the quiet of the house. There are no sounds from the bathroom next door. Hannibal’s retreated into the privacy of his own rooms, and that’s completely unsurprising. Will decides he might as well make use of the bathroom Hannibal left vacant. He really needs to piss by this point. 

He opens the bathroom door wide again before he showers, keeping it quick, soaping and rinsing himself efficiently and listening under the water for any steps from the hallway. It’s only a few practiced strokes with his razor to clean up the fuzziness on his cheeks and define the edges of his stubble. Hannibal will need longer to shave every line of his face and jaw flawlessly smooth. Will figures he has time, but his attention still stays on the door. 

He makes it back to the guest room without hearing Hannibal leave, and he opens up the pack he tossed into a corner yesterday and pulls on his underwear. Then he stops, sits back onto the bed behind him, and stares at his bag. Compared to the decisions he’s been making these last ten days, the ones he’s looking at now are stupidly facile, and yet it’s suddenly, completely overwhelming. 

It’s easier to sit here, sit and wait, see what Hannibal chooses to do. 

And obviously Hannibal won’t come back to Will after his shower. He has no need; his clothes, his things, are in his own room, and now Will sits and listens to his footsteps tap past in the hallway and down the stairs. 

He looks at his surroundings, at his scruffy, travel-worn backpack and yesterday’s creased, discarded clothes littering up the floor of this otherwise pristine room, and his thoughts trickle like sludge. 

All that time they’d spent together, and they have no precedent for this, and Will’s left sitting here mostly naked, wondering whether it’s appropriate for him to wander round Hannibal’s house barefoot. They’d eaten breakfast together before, sometimes, years ago, but they met already dressed, and wearing shoes. 

Well, there was that first morning, when Hannibal showed up at his motel room, and Will opened the door in what he’d been sleeping in, then dragged on a pair of jeans over his sweaty underwear to eat with him. It became embarrassing as hell to look back on later, but at the time he’d found Hannibal so annoyingly intrusive that some obvious signals pushing that fact in his face had seemed warranted. 

Hannibal had changed everything in less than a day. One day to reshape himself in Will’s head into someone significant, unshakable, someone Will wanted to keep within reach, and only Garrett Jacob Hobbs and his wife had to die for it. 

Louise – that was her name. He can pull it from his memory if he wants to, the name of Abigail’s mother. 

What he wants most right now is a coffee. 

And Hannibal wasn’t wrong either; he’s definitely hungry. He hasn’t eaten since lunchtime yesterday, a sad representative of a sandwich he grabbed from the café near the bus interchange. 

He returns to his pack in the corner and pulls on a pair of jeans – they’re not the most worn pair he has, but they’re not new – with a plain shirt, and socks, and decides he’s not bothering with shoes. If Hannibal wants to live with Will, he’s going to be living with Will, not some perfect, Hannibal-ised version from inside his own head, and they need to establish that early on, or it’s never going to work. 

He walks to the top of the stairs, and pauses there to take a deliberate breath. 

Will came here with a plan, and the determination to push it through, and his plan went no further than yesterday, than getting here and getting Hannibal into bed, crashing through that physical wall they’d always held between them and showing that at least one thing has changed. 

And the sex _works_. When it’s just the two of them, when everything condenses down into the immediate _now_ and they’re breathing against each other, both wanting the same, it’s beyond good, it’s utterly absorbing. But Will can’t keep dragging them back into that, because every time it stops, the rest of what lies between them is still here. Will had only considered it safer to establish that final, missing connection in their relationship before they started walking into minefields. They negotiated their way past Alana last night, but there’ll be more. 

He’s known for a long time there are only two ways their cycle of mutual destruction can end. Will’s not currently in favour of either of them dying. 

He takes the stairs down, quiet on socked feet, and follows the sounds of crockery through the living areas until he finds the kitchen. This room is entirely suited to Baltimore Hannibal, an expanse of cupboards and appliances arranged around a wide central island, gleaming modernity nestled comfortably in the surrounds of old-fashioned wood and tile. “Hi,” Will says quietly, with a smile that doesn’t seem to fit his face, and can’t possibly be convincing. 

Hannibal looks up from his mixing bowl, and the smile he offers in return is more genuine than the one he gave Will first thing. Cooking always relaxes Hannibal, smooths the edges from his darker moods. “Take a seat, Will.” He gestures towards the stools at the island with his left hand, the one not holding a wet, sticky fork. “Breakfast is quite basic this morning, I’m afraid. It should be ready in twenty minutes.” He’s wearing similar clothes to yesterday, an unfussy combination of pants and shirt, with his jacket set carefully to one side, and Will’s first impulse is to peel him out of them and make him real again. 

Will looks to the seats, but he stays where he is. Normally he’d be offering to help, but Hannibal’s fallen back into his rhythm with the bowl and Will’s lost in this kitchen, and after yesterday he doesn’t want to push so much this morning. 

It’s not true – he wants to push, he wants to push _hard_ , for everything, but he recognises that he shouldn’t. Will’s not the best with relationships, but he managed this before, with Molly, this negotiation of how to fit lives together with the smallest amount of friction. Hannibal’s pricklier than Molly, and there’s definitely a more problematic background between them to steer around, but Will can do it because he has to, because this can’t fail when he’s destroyed everything else in his life for it. 

Will’s fingers are curled tight around the edge of the countertop he’s leaning against, and Hannibal looks over his shoulder at him and says, “If you’d like coffee, it’s in the cupboard to your left, on the top shelf alongside the appliances.” Hannibal’s hair hangs loose and slightly damp from the shower, swinging away from his forehead with the angle, and it’s not long enough yet to shadow the affection in his eyes. 

Will releases his grip on the furnishings, and the worst of the awkwardness through him has already softened. “I’ll make some for both of us,” he says, and his own rush of warmth is there, released in return, his smile inevitable and immediate whenever Hannibal looks at him that way, the simple fondness that makes their relationship feel impossibly _normal_. 

He goes searching where he’s instructed, and to his relief he finds a French press next to the beans. It’s double walled in ornately blown glass, with a carved wooden lid and handle, but it’s not some inordinately extravagant machine. This he can deal with. There’s a Baratza burr grinder there too, more expensive than anything Will ever had in his kitchen, but the controls are intuitive. He sets water to boil, then measures out the beans, grinding them on the coarsest setting. 

Hannibal’s working at the stove by the time the kettle boils, and Will’s hunger is thoroughly piqued as the smell of meat and mushrooms gently frying permeates the kitchen. His stomach rumbles at him while he pre-heats the French press with a rinse of boiling water. He waits a minute longer for the water to cool before he adds it to the coffee and stirs it, then leaves it to steep. 

He settles back against the countertop, watching Hannibal cook. 

Hannibal’s stirring the food as it fries, his back to Will, the cloth of his shirt tightening over his arms and shoulders with the movement of his muscles. He doesn’t only stir, because he’s Hannibal; periodically he lifts the pan from the heat and tosses its contents, catching everything neatly back in the skillet, and when he tips his head back that way, his hair’s long enough to touch his collar, obscuring the thin strip of skin that draws Will’s eyes. 

It’s always fascinating, watching Hannibal without the acute distraction of Hannibal looking back. 

Hannibal scrapes the pan’s contents onto a waiting plate, wiping the skillet clean for whatever stage of breakfast comes next. Will shakes himself back into activity, and begins exploring nearby cupboards, tracking down cups and sugar and spoons with only a couple of false starts. He presses the plunger on the brewed coffee and pours out two mugs. 

Will adds sugar to the first cup and offers it to Hannibal automatically before the thought strikes him, and he hesitates. “Still black, one sugar?” he asks, because he hasn’t done anything as simple as have coffee with Hannibal in four years. They’ve both changed since then, and Will wonders what else might have. 

Hannibal sets down the skillet and takes the cup from him, blowing on it gently. “My tastes have had limited opportunity to evolve. My last accommodations didn’t serve coffee, for fear of exciting the residents.” 

It’s a mild statement of fact, but the punch of guilt that comes with it is staggering. 

Will remembers it, every second of it, his decision and following it through, knowing throughout the long wait for Jack’s arrival that it was the right thing to do, because Hannibal _deserved_ it, to be sealed away from society where he can’t destroy people, because that’s what he does. 

He’d known he was taking away Hannibal’s freedom, and he could make himself okay with that. He hadn’t let himself linger on all the thousand smaller implications that went along with it, not until three years later when he walked into the BSHCI and _saw._ He hadn’t followed the thought to the end point where a high security mental institution wouldn’t let Hannibal have _coffee_ , even though Will knew it, because he’d been there. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he feels like he should. “I wouldn’t do that again.” It needs to be said, not left there lurking between them, another alligator in the swamp. 

Hannibal tilts his head, with a slight lift of his eyebrows. “I recall it being my own choice, Will.” 

It was, even if Will had pushed him at that choice, knowing he’d make it. “And the teacup’s always broken,” he says, smiling a little sadly at the memory of that conversation. He’d make a different decision, if he could, and the knowledge is useless. 

Hannibal sets his cup down on the countertop, steps closer and slides his hand along Will’s cheek to rest at his neck. “I have no regrets, Will,” he says. “The outcome is as I predicted.” His words are soft and his gaze is bottomless obsession, and Will wants to shove him back against the island and tear his clothes from him and fuck him right there. 

Will’s stomach has other thoughts as it growls at him again, and Hannibal releases him, an amused smile on his lips and eyes before he turns away. “I believe that’s my cue to return to my eggs.” 

“I can’t be the only one who’s hungry,” Will says, stirring sugar into his own mug. “We both missed dinner last night.” 

Hannibal looks over from the stove, warm eyes peering at Will above the rim of his coffee cup. “I wouldn’t recommend it on a regular basis, but some things are worth making an exception for.” 

Will’s arm pauses with his own mug half-raised to his lips. “You’re always the exception to everything,” he tells him. 

“Only for you, Will,” Hannibal says, matching his own quiet intensity. 

Hannibal turns back to his pan, adding the meat and a mix of other ingredients to the eggs now cooking there, and Will takes a first careful sip of his coffee. It’s still too hot, but it’s a sharp, tangy Arabica (of course it is, Hannibal doesn’t buy blends) and Will wants the caffeine, and he keeps drinking even though it almost burns his palate behind his teeth. 

The parallels with the man currently lifting the skillet from the stove and sliding a spatula around its edges are too obvious to miss, and Will feels the tendrils of tension creeping back beneath his skin. This isn’t the first time he’s drunk coffee in Hannibal’s kitchen in the morning, but it’s different when everything’s out in the open, when he has nowhere else to be, when he’s expecting to stay, to be here again tomorrow, and the day after, and he’s betting both their lives on the hope they can do this without driving each other to violence. 

Hannibal bounces the pan with a twist from his forearm, the omelette rising lazily into the air and rolling to land precisely centred. Will finds himself smiling again with the flooding swell of endearment, soft and so different from the fierce drive that sucks them together in desperation and frenzy, yet a component of it just the same. He takes his coffee with him to the drawer he found the spoons in, gathers up utensils to lay out on the central island, and finally settles on one of the offered stools. 

Hannibal’s finishing up, switching off the heat and carefully arranging food, and he turns and hands Will a plate containing a perfectly fluffed up Denver omelette with herbed mushrooms on the side. 

Will takes the plate and idly wonders whether he wants to ask. He thinks it’s unlikely Hannibal’s been out murdering people here yet, but it’s hard to be sure of anything with Hannibal. 

Hannibal’s watching him with widely innocent eyes and an edge of amusement. “It’s all perfectly conventional, I assure you. The ingredients are largely store-bought, although I did grow the herbs myself, if you have objections to that.” 

Will’s speculated in the past about what might be in the soil Hannibal grows his herbs in, because if he can find a way to brew people into beer, Freddie’s salad might not have been as strictly vegetarian as she would have liked, but Will trod that particular path too long ago to worry about any oblique possibilities now. He picks up his fork. “I’ve always enjoyed anything you cook,” he says, because it’s true, and he starts to eat. 

The smell of it had made him explicitly aware of his hunger, and that’s nothing to what happens when it hits his tongue. Ever since he left the Verger mansion, Will’s been living on staples like bread and cereal and fish, with the added variety of canned soups and frozen dinners, and none of them come even close to what Hannibal puts together for a ‘basic’ breakfast. Will’s more than capable of making eggs, but Hannibal does things with them that seem almost magical. 

Will chews, and swallows. “This is amazing,” he says, and he’s smiling again because he means it, and cooking is one of the few areas where feeding Hannibal’s ego and provoking him to more is largely harmless. 

That irresistible affection is back, lingering in Hannibal’s gaze. “I’m always inspired when I’m creating something for you, Will.” 

Hannibal’s created more than just food for Will in the past, but breakfast isn’t a time he wants to be thinking about that, so he doesn’t. He stabs another forkful of omelette and lifts it to his mouth, and Hannibal’s eyes are a laser focus on him the whole time. Will’s making a notable effort to comply with Hannibal’s standards on manners, though he feels half-starved and it tastes fantastic, and he’d love to just shovel it all in like one of his newly found strays. 

Hannibal finally looks down to his own plate and joins Will in eating, and Will feels simultaneously the easing of tension and the loss. Hannibal’s attention is both a monopolising heat that he can’t ever absorb enough of, and a blaze from which he’s always felt he should be hiding in the shadow of the nearest rock. 

The part of Will that wants to secrete himself away burns down with each successive exposure, and there’s almost nothing of that man left. He spears and swallows his food, his gaze locked onto Hannibal, and he’s ready for whatever comes when that attention returns. 

Breakfast goes on that way for a while, with both of them concentrating on eating, and it’s an oddly silent meal. It isn’t odd for Will, who would always choose quiet companionship over forced socialising (and even more so in the mornings), but he thinks it’s odd for Hannibal, a man who believes conversation to be both a requirement of basic civility and an art form to be perfected. 

Maybe Hannibal’s just as hungry as Will is, though his natural restraint wouldn’t let him show it. Maybe the quiet is just about the food. 

Will doesn’t actually believe that, but whatever’s going on in Hannibal’s head, the silence isn’t awkward, and Will’s okay with it. 

He finishes eating, and gathers his plate and mug together, and Hannibal instantly stands and reaches for them. “Please, let me take those for you.” 

Will tilts his head, and looks up at him, considering. “Am I your guest here, Hannibal?” 

The pause before Hannibal answers is barely noticeable; in anyone else, it would be the equivalent of several seconds of careful thought. “You are not, if you don’t wish to be.” 

“Then I’m not.” Will takes his crockery over to the dishwasher, because he doesn’t have to know a kitchen to find one of those, and even Hannibal isn’t impractical enough to use delicate hand-wash-only china at breakfast. 

Hannibal joins him by the appliance, adding his own plate and cooking implements to the racks, and he slants his eyes sideways at Will as he says, “If you’re set upon making yourself useful, perhaps you might check the guttering at the back of the house later. It leaks badly when it rains, and I’ve chosen not to encourage the locals to visit since I moved in.” 

Will’s tempted to ask why Hannibal didn’t fix it himself if he didn’t want to get a contractor, but he just can’t picture Hannibal up a ladder making repairs, even if he wasn’t newly healed from a gunshot wound. He keeps his own tone equally deadpan and tells him, “If you’re putting me to work, I’m going to play the guest card one last time and demand you show me round the place. It’s not easy to be productive when I don’t know where anything is.” 

Hannibal closes the dishwasher and gives him a courtly bow. “I would be delighted to give you the tour, Will. Perhaps I should have done so yesterday, but I recall you being quite determinedly distracting.” 

It’s the most ridiculously flirtatious thing Will’s ever seen directed his way, and Hannibal’s eyes are amused brown affection, and the reference to how they spent the night isn’t helping Will’s resolve not to just kiss him into bed again. The ever-present charge between them is at high voltage when their gazes linger, and Will lets his fingers trail along Hannibal’s sleeve and wrist. “I had some very specific motivations,” he acknowledges, and steps back and away before he’s drawn in deeper. 

He hears Hannibal take a slow breath behind him, and wonders what he’s deducing from Will in the scents. 

Nothing that displeases him evidently, as Hannibal retains his good humour when he walks over to the outer door and points along the yard. “There is a shed beyond the herb garden, containing a variety of tools. I don’t consider it my area of expertise, but I hope you’ll find the selection to be adequate.” 

Will chooses to raise his eyebrows into the pause, rather than make any obvious comment on the adequacy of Hannibal’s tools, and Hannibal smiles. “When you're finished with the gutters, you may wish to find the wine glasses, which are in the cupboard above your left shoulder.” 

Hannibal goes on to explain the details of the kitchen’s layout and contents; it’s an obvious place to start because they’re already here, and also because he’s Hannibal. Will doesn’t think he’ll ever want to know where the nutmeg mill or the salad spinner are kept, but he can just relax against the countertop and absorb Hannibal’s energy and enthusiasm as he speaks. Hannibal’s here, and alive, he’s within reach and wholly touchable, and their separations have been too long and too recent; Will’s eyes follow every movement of him, roam every detail of his face, and he smiles and offers encouraging comments so he can keep on watching. 

Hannibal moves them slowly through the living areas, some of which Will has already seen, though paid little attention to. The décor follows the Mediterranean theme of the exterior styling, with light-framed windows and airy spaces in warm colours. It’s quite a contrast to the Baltimore house, whose dark wood and overly ornate furnishings could shrink its large rooms into something either intimate or oppressive within the minimalist lighting. Will finds the mood of this new place to be pleasingly neutral and mellow. 

His gaze falls onto a fireplace he recognises, still holding the ashes of yesterday’s fire, with an intimately familiar armchair beside it ( _he’s crouched over Hannibal, kissing and stroking and tasting his skin, exploring and revelling in the wanting_ ) and his eyes close through the rush of relived sensation. 

He opens them and meets Hannibal’s, interested and knowing, and he steps closer to stand alongside him, the fabrics over their shoulders almost brushing. It’s not pressure, it’s not a demand, he’s just a little deeper into Hannibal’s space than anything that might be platonic. A reminder that he’s staying, that his intentions are still the same as yesterday’s, and Hannibal takes another of those careful, deliberate inhales before he continues the tour. 

Hannibal leads them up the stairs, bypassing the bedroom and bath that Will already knows, pointing out additional bedrooms and a linen closet along the hallway. Will maintains his precisely minimal distance, the atmosphere tight with tingling static around them, a spark ready to flare at the first hint of contact. 

It’s always there, an electromagnetic force increasing exponentially as the space between them shrinks; it’s always been there, even back when they still talked about friendship, as if offering to make a bonfire of both their careers and reputations and live as hunted murderers together was something friends did. Last night’s intimacy hasn’t reduced its intensity in any way; Will feels its charge within his skin, and he thinks it might even have magnified, the removal of resistance allowing the current to flow full strength, unimpeded. 

The door at the end of the hallway leads to the master suite, and Hannibal walks all the way inside, leaving it open for Will to follow. 

This room is much larger than the one they slept in last night, with an expanse of south-facing windows overlooking most of the grounds, a sunlit field running down to the fence line at the boundary. Will instantly wants to throw everything open, to let the cool morning breeze flow through the house, and through himself. 

Hannibal’s talking about the interior, about the practicalities, and the en suite bathroom visible through a doorway to their left. “The beds in the two rooms are identical, although the shower here is a superior model, with a stronger flow and additional jets,” he concludes. 

Will takes a deep breath, because Hannibal chose to end the tour here, and this is his cue to push again, and he’s not quite looking at Hannibal when he says, “I thought I’d move my things in here later, if that’s okay with you.” 

Hannibal’s hand settles on Will’s cheek, and when Will meets his gaze, he finds that full-on, staring intensity that’s burned through to the core of him for years. “I've said it before, Will, you are my family. I didn’t buy this house for me to inhabit alone. I bought it for us.” Hannibal pulls back a few inches and looks towards the window. “The previous owners kept animals. There's a fenced run beside the house, for dogs.” 

Dogs. _Dogs._

Will had expected he’d be the one to broach that subject, maybe after a couple of weeks, when things between them have settled some. He takes a step forward, to see immediately below, and there are metal posts and mesh standing out from the wall. 

For all Hannibal’s doubts, through all his _fear_ of another rejection, he’s still trying, wanting to make this work, and Will is slammed by a surge of love-hope-gratitude-desire that leaves him almost dizzy as it sucks him down. He finds he’s smiling at Hannibal, sudden and bright, and he really, really wants to kiss Hannibal right now, so he does. He’s kissing Hannibal with his lips and with his hands, and the tension vanishes from Hannibal’s body as he lets himself flow with it, and they’re kissing each other with everything, moulding closer until they press all along each other, and it was only yesterday, but it seems Will’s forgotten how fast this detonates from their constant, underlying pull into something that fills every corner of his head. 

He draws back while he still has control of it, because he needs to keep that for now, but only far enough to look at Hannibal, and they’re still touching. He shakes his head and his lips curve up slightly at the corners. “You knew I’d come.” 

Hannibal’s arm is curled around Will’s waist, and his hand presses tighter at his spine. “I have always known we will be together, Will. I have only been mistaken as to when.” 

It’s another of those crazy juxtapositions that make up so much of Hannibal – the unshakable confidence that let him hand himself over into a cell, into some unknown, yawning future, and the choked reluctance to believe when Will is actually sprawled over him in his bed. 

Will traces a finger along Hannibal’s lips. “Stay right here,” he says, and steps sideways out of his loosening grip. 

He strides fast along the hallway, back to last night’s bedroom. He grabs his backpack and everything’s already in there, because he never planned to stay in this room. The only things left behind are laundry, and that can wait. 

He returns to Hannibal, and locks his gaze with him as he drags the last of his clean clothes out onto the bed. He takes his cheap cotton shirts over to the closet, tugging it open and pushing them onto empty hangers alongside Hannibal’s elegantly tailored jackets. It’s barely a minute before it’s done, because he only brought a week’s clothes with him when he left Jack’s secret hideaway, and then he’s by the bed again, staring down at his small pile of socks, T-shirts and underwear. 

“The top two drawers are available for your use.” 

Will’s eyes flick up, and over to where Hannibal’s still standing near the window. His face is the impassive, neutral mask that Will’s seen far too much of, but it can’t blunt the shock that makes Will’s pulse jump and rush, because Hannibal’s telling him… 

Hannibal has deliberately arranged his life around Will’s absence, left space here for him to fill, but he didn’t mention it until Will looked for it, and Will finally recognises what he’s been seeing through most of the morning. 

Will isn’t the only one reluctant to push for too much; they’re both scared of breaking this thing, the way they’ve broken each other in the past, and that’s the reason they stand any chance of working now. 

Sometimes it’s really fucking hard for Will to understand why he loves Hannibal. This is one of the times when it can only make sense, a transparent inevitability. 

“Thanks,” he says, and they’re talking about socks, but Will’s smile is almost as wide as it was over the dogs. He arranges his belongings in the drawers, where they practically vanish into the depths (later today he’ll have to take up Hannibal’s offer of a credit card to buy himself some more clothes, but not now) and he looks again to Hannibal. He hasn’t moved since Will ended their kiss, and every time their eyes meet, the intensity he finds within them ratchets higher. 

“There’s just one more thing,” Will says, and it’s starting to feel like he won’t ever stop smiling. He picks up his almost empty pack and takes it with him back to the bathroom along the hallway. There’s a tube of lubricant in the side pocket, because Will came here with a plan, and everything that plan included. 

He peels down his jeans and his boxers, supports himself with one arm leaning over the countertop, and pushes two fingers inside himself. 

He hasn’t done this in quite a while, but he knows what he likes, and he loosens up fast, working the lube deeper with his fingers until he’s liberally slick. And he _does_ know what he likes, his thoughts are already expanding to where this is going, and his cock’s starting to thicken, and he stops before he gets too far ahead of his intentions. 

He wipes the stray lube from his skin with bath tissue, washes his hands and fixes up his clothes. 

He checks himself over in the mirror before he leaves. His pupils have dilated and he’s half hard inside his jeans, but he doesn’t look so different. And Hannibal’s right – they really will have to do something about that goddamn scar. 

He collects his razor and toothbrush, makes the last walk back to Hannibal’s room, and deliberately sets everything down by the washbasin in the en suite while Hannibal watches. 

Will’s hands are finally empty, and he goes to Hannibal, twists his fingers into the fine, clinging material of Hannibal’s shirt and lets his head fall forward onto his shoulder, so much like he did on the cliff. “This is how it should be,” he says, a simple statement of fact, because Hannibal’s believed it for years, and now Will does too. 

Hannibal’s arms have wound themselves around Will to hold him. “It will be,” he says, with that roughened edge of arousal back in his voice, and Will smiles into Hannibal’s jacket, because Hannibal has expectation now, whether he wants it or not. 

Will’s erection is pressed against Hannibal’s hip, and he’s not hurling himself on Hannibal today, but he’s not trying to hide it either; he can’t. He must stink of tension and desire beneath Hannibal’s wood-layered soap and shampoo, and it’s up to Hannibal whether to act on it this particular minute, or later. 

Will’s confident he’ll act on it. The craving they’ve built up between them throughout their relationship isn’t something that gets worked out in half a day. 

Hannibal’s muscles are still tense against him when Will feels the first brush of lips, dry at his temple. Will angles his neck, tilts his face into the contact, and Hannibal’s body softens, the kisses moving gently over his cheekbone. Will releases the shirt fabric, sliding his hands instead onto Hannibal’s ribs beneath his jacket, and he exhales slow and contented against Hannibal’s neck. 

It’s been a long time since Will was wrong in his predictions about Hannibal. 

The progression is steady; not rushed but not lingering, a building pressure of hands and mouths, and this time when they strip each other’s clothes, it’s with a bit more decorum and a lot more sensuality, at least until they get to the socks, because there’s honestly no elegant or erotic way to do that. And then they’re naked in a bed together for the second time, or more accurately on a bed, since Hannibal didn’t have the foresight to turn down the sheets. 

Will doesn’t care about the sheets. He cares about the man with him, encouraging Hannibal onto his back beneath him, and he grasps Hannibal’s cock at the base and lowers himself down onto him in one smooth push. 

In the past sometimes, he’d let his imagination run, let himself feel how it might be if he reached out and indulged his own desire, just once (it wouldn’t have been once, he knew that, and it’s one of so many reasons he never had). He didn’t do it often, because releasing those fantasies was the very opposite of an exorcism; it never made him want Hannibal any less, and afterwards the guilt would haunt him through the rest of the day. But there were times, a few times, when his mood veered a certain way, and Will had fucked himself while thinking of Hannibal, had thought of a killer in his bed, predatory and demanding. 

It’s nothing like that now. 

Will’s looking down at Hannibal and seeing his eyes wide and bare, stripped raw by surprise and blatantly _adoring_. It’s an expression that goes straight to Will’s gut and flares into heat, always; the singular focus of Hannibal’s attention on Will to the exclusion of all else is a clinging want that doesn’t ever stop, twining its way between them like some parasitic vine, and Will has Hannibal here, whole and in this bed that they’re making theirs, pressing him down into the sheets and further into his own body with his weight, and _fucking_ doesn’t begin to describe what they’re doing. 

Will leans forward to kiss him, and he loses some of the depth of penetration inside him, but he gains more of Hannibal’s body flush against him, and he wants to hold him there, to force Hannibal in through his pores, push Hannibal even deeper under his skin than he already is and keep him there. Because he is keeping Hannibal this time, he’s _keeping_ him, and he drags his lips away and props himself up with one arm to see that devotion exposed on Hannibal’s face again. 

It changes as he watches; still candid infatuation, oh yes, but amplified into more, more seeking, more covetous, and Hannibal heaves them both upright, Will kneeling over his lap and pinned against his chest, and okay, that’s even better, that’s maybe close to perfect, more of the pressing friction inside, and all of Hannibal here within reach, to be touched, to be sucked on, whatever Will wants, and Will wants _everything._

Hannibal’s hands move from Will’s ribs to curl around his cheeks, and he’s staring into his eyes from inches away. “You amaze me, Will, always.” 

It’s such a ridiculously over the top thing to say, and it’s so very Hannibal to say it with utter sincerity. And Will’s just as amazed, amazed that this is his life now, in bed and in love with a murderer who _delights_ him. 

Will grins down into Hannibal’s upturned face and flicks his tongue along his lip. “I don’t intend to stop.” 

Hannibal’s eyes bleed darker and his fingers trail past Will’s ear as his mouth closes the gap to murmur beneath his jawline, “I would be highly disappointed if you did.” 

And Will’s not stopping now, he’s not stopping anything; not the movement of his body on Hannibal’s, not the spreading pull of Hannibal inside his head, not the plunging drop into the abyss that is the two of them combined, because he doesn’t fucking _want_ to stop it any more. There’s only what’s left as real, and Hannibal is so very real, real against him and real inside him, he’s real for Will Graham in a way that nobody else has ever wanted to be, and denying this wasn’t just futile, it was sabotage of himself. 

There’s an ache rising in his thighs as he moves, a mild distraction holding him back just a bit, slowing the build of Hannibal’s cock inside him and Hannibal’s hand curled around his own erection. He’s breathing hard with the effort of it, his eyes locked onto the smile in Hannibal’s, and he tilts his head down to Hannibal’s bicep where his arm lies draped over his shoulder, kissing the skin there. And then he bites, just a little harder than he first did yesterday, hard enough to mark with a bruise, enough to elicit that reaction where Hannibal gasps and tenses and then melts into lust, because Hannibal loves Will’s violence and Will loves Hannibal responding to him, the two of them always feeding on each other in spiralling desire, even back before they acknowledged the sexuality of it. 

And Will’s pushing him now, working harder, faster, watching, determined to see when Hannibal loses that fastidious control in something other than rage. The arm at his neck tightens, Hannibal’s smile collapsing as he breathes deep through parted lips, until finally he grasps Will hard around the shoulders and _pulls_ him down, clutching Will close against him while he comes. 

It’s there again when Hannibal opens his eyes, the unleashed flare of possessive zeal that burns into Will’s head and his chest and his cock, and there’s a moment when they’re both still and staring, before Hannibal gathers himself and slides his hand back along Will’s erection. Will curls his spine forward, his forehead dropping to meet Hannibal’s, his weight settled onto Hannibal’s hips, and he relaxes and lets Hannibal take him, gives himself over into the sensations of Hannibal’s fingers and the cock inside him, not yet fully softened. Hannibal’s good at this (Will doesn’t claim a vast partner pool, but it’s his experience that men usually are), and it’s enjoyable to just feel it, let himself be pulled along to his own orgasm in a steadily rising rhythm and a wash of lust and release. 

He stays there, when he’s done, breathing against Hannibal, sticky with sweat and come and mindlessly content. It’s Hannibal who eventually moves, retrieving his hand from between them and stretching across to grab tissues from the nightstand, because apparently Hannibal did do some pre-planning, and Will can take a hint. He disentangles himself to flop sideways onto the bed. 

“I believe you may want these.” Hannibal’s looking him over with some amusement, and offering him a handful of tissues. 

“Thanks,” Will says dryly, and sets about cleaning himself. It takes a while – he’s a mess everywhere. Hannibal stretches out alongside him, thoughtful behind the small smile and the endless warmth in his eyes. 

From the time in his teens when he was starting to figure out exactly how different he was, Will’s never been able to imagine that he might have this – this moment when the sex is over and it isn’t awkward, and there’s someone who _knows_ who isn’t leaving. 

Hannibal isn’t easy, he’s never going to be easy, but for this, this encompassing mutual addiction, this crazy, shattering _love_ , Will can deal with everything else that comes along with him. 

Their faces are close, and Hannibal’s hand is back at Will’s jaw, more touching than holding. “You delight in surprising me.” 

He does, because so few people can, and it’s one of the reasons Hannibal loves him. Will raises his eyebrows and slants a smile at him. “I’ll be expecting you to return the favour, obviously.” 

There’s no answering humour in Hannibal, but there’s no hesitation either, only the shift into that binding stare that slices all the way through Will to his soul. “We belong together, Will, in every possible way. There aren’t ever any limits for us.” And Hannibal’s talking about sex, yes, but he’s talking about everything else too, because Hannibal never sees boundaries in anything he wants. 

Will breathes out long and slow as he plays fingers through the ends of Hannibal’s hair at his neck. “I’m not sure yet if there might be,” he says, and it’s total honesty. 

“If I find any, I’ll tear them down.” Hannibal’s words carry a ferocity that’s more promise than intent, and it should probably be disturbing, given the context of their relationship, but it’s not, because this is how Hannibal loves, and it’s not like Will didn’t know that. 

It’s almost comforting, sitting there alongside the idea of dogs, an indicator that Hannibal is really going to try at this, this high stakes madness between one man who for most of his life never considered wanting a relationship, and another who can never make anything last, and Will stretches forward to kiss him again, because he wants to, and for now at least, he can. And Hannibal meets him, twining a hand into Will’s months-overgrown hair, pulling them together with a softly exhaled breath that Will wants to suck from his lungs and never release. 

Will eases out of the kiss and settles against Hannibal, letting his eyes close, and he feels Hannibal’s lips breathe lightly across his cheekbone, and Hannibal’s muscles loose and relaxed against his skin. He feels Hannibal’s fingers curl and stroke soft and repetitive along the lines of his ribs. 

He should get out of bed soon, and deal with the practical things, like buying some more clothes; maybe he’ll even find a ladder and fix the gutters. But he can stay here for a little while, and just let himself feel this. 

It feels like maybe, maybe Hannibal is starting to believe.


End file.
